


Obsolete Equipment

by Ylevihs



Series: How Not to Fall [24]
Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén, Fallen Hero: Rebirth (Video Game)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Retribution Spoilers, puppet use, references to self harm, references to suicidal thoughts, richard's terrible self esteem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-17 20:26:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20193496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ylevihs/pseuds/Ylevihs
Summary: Richard and Daniel discuss Mitzi





	Obsolete Equipment

There was no polite way to ask your boyfriend to stop looking at your naked, unconscious body with care and concern. 

At least, that’s what Richard hoped that expression was. 

Rather than hovering behind him or staying by the side of the cot, Daniel had decided that he was going to sit on the cot, back to the wall, with Richard’s cartoonishly long body propped up against him. He had his chin resting gently in the orange curls and was staring down at Richard’s chest. Not staring at the tattoos; Richard had been in his head long enough to know that they didn’t hold much fascination anymore for Daniel. It still sent a chill through his spinal cord to see his skin so casually juxtaposed against Daniel’s. 

Half of Richard was desperate to know what was going on in that head—the other half carefully moved in close to begin suturing the cut on his forehead shut.   
Mitzi had much smaller hands than his normal body. Helped make for neater stitches. And every time Richard drew Mitzi’s hand back to tighten a loop, there was a tiny. Daniel made. Richard tied off the thread and snipped it clean. The cut on his head would heal well. It probably hadn’t even needed stitches in the first place.

Richard took in a deep breath to try and quell the rising riot in Mitzi’s veins. “Okay,”

Daniel blinked at him like he’d been jolted awake. “Okay?”

Mid-shimmy down the bed, Richard paused. This was going to suck. Not the. The stitches on his face and the ones he was about to put into his hip would be annoying but. But.

He’d dealt with worse before. 

“Her name was Mitzi,” couldn’t look up at Daniel’s face, so he focused on making sure his hands didn’t shake. Pierced the ragged edge of the wound and curved, pulling the skin forward to meet its equally mottled match and drag them together. It was still trying to sluggishly bleed. Richard let it. 

“Was? Is she…,” Daniel trailed and Richard had no way of knowing where that sentence was supposed to end. He told himself. Didn’t take a detective but Richard could will himself into blindness. 

“Her body, this,” Richard gestured with Mitzi’s chin down at the rest of her. “This body. Was in a coma. Brain dead. In the hospital,” it had been hell going back and forth to do the research. To have to keep walking down those bleach and body fluid reeking hallways. Hunched in and screaming with every ounce of psychic ability he had not to be noticed. There had been no sign in sheet, no visitor name tag. Whoever Mitzi had been, nobody was coming to check on her. “State run,” no one had come to pester him; not even to check on her vitals. 

She was alone and all but seemingly forgotten; donations could keep the respirators on and the catheters in, but all the money in the world couldn’t make people actually care about an empty shell.

The room had smelled of a weird mix of sterile and organic decay. The floors were bleached regularly by quiet people who kept their eyes on the ground; the workers who washed Mitzi did it like they were scrubbing down a filthy car. Quick industrious motions. Talking about their kids or their shows and Richard had tested himself once. Sat in the corner of the room and pressed out as hard as he could that they were alone.

They’d accepted it easily. There wasn’t a man in the corner. There never was before and they had no reason to expect to see one there now. They left a cleanish body in a cleanish room and didn’t talk about how her skin smelled faintly of death. 

Richard bit down hard on his lower lip and did not did not did absolutely not let himself notice Daniel stroking his bicep with his thumb. Or the way he nestled his chin in closer. 

“No family listed. No friends ever came to visit her,” it was only ever him in the room. And, on occasion, a nurse who might drag their feet by the doorway. Poke their head in and then back out. Nothing to see here folks. The veggie was still in her bed. The creeping thought was not a new one, but it was just as unwelcome as the first time it had shown up. Maybe there had been at first. Maybe someone had showed up during the first few days, weeks. Months. Stroked her hair and whispered things. 

“So you took her body?” it was a hollow sound. Ready and waiting to be filled with all manner of. 

Well.

Nothing good. 

Richard let the question hang in the air, trying to figure out how to better make it into a noose. “They didn’t even notice she was gone. I guess the nurses all assumed she had died on some other shift,” he rose up onto her feet and began putting away the supplies. Sutures and needles and no iodine into open wounds. He’d learned that one the hard way. A thin roll of gauze stayed out along with skin safe tape. 

A dangerous lull and in it Daniel made a quiet noise. “So you took her body,” he repeated, the words settling like heavy stones at the bottom of deep water. “That’s really fucked up Richard,” disgust and a little confusion but mostly just exhaustion. Like he’d been the one in a fight. 

“Turns out most things I do are,” the venom wasn’t the same in Mitzi’s throat. She couldn’t make the same poison. She sounded darkly funny instead of bitter. “It doesn’t make it any better,” he snapped shut the plastic casing on the clear first aid box. “But I take better care of her than I ever have my own,” it was a little unsettling to see Daniel glaring daggers at him. “Body,” 

Not at Mitzi. 

At the limp body cradled against himself. Covered in too many scars and bruises and broken pieces and ah, beans, bleeding a little still from his mouth. “I can tell,” whispered. Half accusatory, half resigned. 

“The plan,” and he caught the way Daniel’s eyebrows twitched and it sent something serrated dragging along his nerves. “Was that when I was done she would go back to the. To a better hospital,” one of the private ones where people knew how to replace an IV on time and take their paychecks and not ask where or who or why. He could afford it now.

A small piece of gauze to his forehead and he had to hold it and tear the tape and. Daniel’s hand took over for him, fingers brushing Mitzi’s out of the way to keep the padding in place against his skin. Something trembled.

“Look at me,” Easier said than done. But he did as Daniel demanded and still managed to register the flicker. “You were going to return her to the hospital before you went back to the farm. Because you wouldn’t need her for things like this anymore by then,” because he’d been planning on. And he wouldn’t need a nursemaid if he was dead. Daniel squinted a little, the way he always did when he was working something out. Creases under his eyes and just a little on his brow. They deepened. Then softened. “Take her back tomorrow,” 

“_What?_” Richard finished taping the gauze in place. Daniel’s gaze held steady and it was almost a temptation to get back into his own head, damn the pain, and figure out what was going on in there. 

“Tomorrow, you stop using her,” he repeated with a slight head shake. “I’ll take her body to whichever hospital you pick. But you don’t need her anymore,”

“I do,” was all Richard could think to say. His stomach felt like it was trying to bury itself. He didn’t need her for Mortum anymore, that much was true. The good Doctor knew the truth about the little dress up game and hadn’t killed him for the lie. Yet. “To finish the job in case I. To make sure I don’t have to. I’m not going back,” it would certainly be an experiment, wouldn’t it? What would happen if he jumped into Mitzi and killed himself with her hands? Her gun. Two of her bullets buried straight into his own head. What would happen if he got captured and tried to jump into her then? 

“I won’t let that happen,” Daniel’s fingers left the gauze and drifted downwards, settling on his. On his body’s shoulder. Something twisted and tightened in Richard’s throat. He tugged up the thin white sheets where Mitzi had thrown them off when he took her body back over. Covered the lower half of his and Daniel’s body with it. Danny let it happen silently. 

“You can’t promise that,” no one could. 

“I can,” he shifted a little under Richard’s dead weight, the cheap fabric shiffing loudly against his skinsuit. “I can because I’m gonna be there. If you get hurt again like this, I’m gonna be here,” Richard watched Daniel’s arms tighten slightly around his body. The disconnect was just jarring enough to make him feel heat welling up in Mitzi’s chest. In the sinuses. Couldn’t cry now, he’d ruin her mascara. “And whatever happens with the farm or with,” even if he couldn’t read his mind, Richard could follow the gaze even as it lead behind him to the stack of armor in the corner. “With Mad Dog, I’m going to be here to make sure you’re alright,” 

First forgiveness and now this. It was painfully naïve. The sort of promises a storybook knight made. The sort of things a hero promised. It would be impossible. Something would go wrong. Or something would go right and. 

“You shouldn’t--,” he wasn’t able to finish. Daniel was loud enough to startle him for the moment. 

“_Shut up_. Just,” a flicker of the anger backed by a lot of exhaustion. Daniel sighed heavy and ragged. And when he spoke again the anger was gone, replaced only by a thin and reedy thing. “Say ‘okay’. For once can you just say okay and let it be? Why do you always have to,” he trailed. Richard let him. Now that sentence was impossible for him to finish. There were any number of things Richard could fill in the blanks with. All the ways he always managed to. Always. The filters were different in Mitzi’s body and he could feel the. Sometimes things were harder to keep back and he didn’t want to. To. 

“Because one of these days you’re going to realize this wasn’t worth it,” Daniel’s brow furrowed down again and he blinked, startled and owlish. It would have been funny looking if it weren’t so. “You’re going to wake up one day and realize that I’m still. That you’ve wasted all this time trying to. That. That whatever you get out of this isn’t going to be worth it,” it wasn’t fair that even in another body his voice still broke like that. Must have been hardwired in. Felt it familiar in her lungs. Mitzi didn’t cry often and the growing tension was wrong. “Maybe tomorrow, or next week or next year or ten years from now. You’ll sit there and I’ll still be like this and it’ll dawn on you that you’ve lost so much time and you could have. You could have,”

“I could have done what?” too soft. There went the stupid mascara. Not a lot, but enough to leave salt in the corner of Mitzi’s eyes when this was all over. 

“You could have been with someone who’s worst trait is spoiling movie endings and not being,” it was meant to sound. Mitzi’s voice wouldn’t let it be as caustic as he wanted. She just sounded scared. “I’m not worth the sh…the things I put you through and it’s only a matter of time until you realize that. And the sooner you realize it the more time you’ll get to spend with someone who’s not a complete. Who. Who’s just _happy_ when you say you love them and who _can_ just say okay when you say you’re going to keep them safe and who isn’t always the one to fuh..to ruin everything,” because wasn’t it always just his fault? What else did he bring to the table besides problems? “All I do is make your life harder, lover boy,” 

“You’re worth it to me,” because of course he would say that. 

“Dan-,”

“I don’t _care_. I don’t care if it’s every morning for every day for the rest of my life. If you need me to wake up and tell you that you’re worth it, I will,” a hard swallow, redness high on his cheekbones. “I love you,” as if that were an explanation. Enough. In Daniel’s head it probably was. “Yeah. You do fuck things up. A lot. You do fucked up things, a lot. And it’s not easy but that doesn’t mean I want anyone else,”

All the words Richard wanted to spit out were shuffling towards to back of the line, avoiding eye contact with each other. Daniel didn’t get it. It was all good and well to say those things for now, but they wouldn’t. Couldn’t last. But. 

“I-,” who knew? Time made fools. And both of their track records for making bad choices were littered with gold stars. 

“Just say okay, Richard,” there was rare note of finality to his voice. Richard didn’t need to see inside Daniel’s head to feel that the conversation was over. There wasn’t anything he could say to change Danny’s mind for the moment. Wasn’t anything Daniel could say to him to change his mind. Richard folded. “Let me take her to a hospital tomorrow. Let me,”   
It felt sick and slick coming up his throat. “…Okay,” it crawled out of his lips and over his skin like snake oil. “I love you,” because he had to say something that hadn’t been tainted by the bile between his ribs. It sounded wrong with her throat anyway. 

“I love you, too,” Daniel echoed and Richard tried to pretend he didn’t see the small kiss pressed into his hair when he turned towards Mitzi’s purse. Couldn’t have answered to save his life why it hurt to see. 

A quick glance in Mitzi’s compact showed a few streaks of watery black from the corners of her eyes, but nothing he couldn’t fix. Brown and clear and only a little red coloring the white. Heavy lashes made heavier with the makeup. It struck Richard a little out of nowhere that he would miss being able to enjoy people’s attention, miss the way their eyes lingered and. It didn’t find much purchase, driven away by a sharp.

Metal clanging. A knock, two, three, on the outside of the warehouse doors. “Hello?” Ortega’s voice was sing song and dripping in sarcasm, rebounding off the walls. “I’ve got a delivery for jackass incorporated,”


End file.
